Living Simply

Google and Memory

A recent article in the Business Insider discusses the possibility that Google is destroying our memory.

“This evolution of how we learn and retain details might allow us to be more efficient in our consumption of information, but what happens to society when we become overly reliant on Google to do the job our brains have always done?”

Retention has always been a problem for me although as I get older I seem to have a clearer understanding of things in life.

The task of searching for information helped our memories retain that information. No more — we know we can “Google” it.

Well, at least the majority of people I know seem to head that way.

It’s always interesting when I visit some of my “older” friends — some just 5 years older — who don’t care to have computers at home and don’t care about all the additional information they could possibly know about.

They are content where they are. The newer generation does not know anything different as cell phones, iPads, Kindles, printers and every new technological advancement is globbed onto.

Are we in a better place now than we were 20 years ago? Depends who you ask. Our social skills have gone downhill, in my opinion. We choose to text instead of talk, email instead of visit. Intimacy with others is at a distance — really it’s no intimacy at all.

Rare are the days when we talk on the phone for hours at a time laughing with someone. Oh — LOL (laughing out loud) is texted to people but it doesn’t have the same depth of value.

Let’s be careful out there not to lose our relationship building skills for lack of using them.